You’ve probably heard some of the buzz about Influencer Marketing, and how it is redefining the way businesses reach their customers. In a world where social media is key and content is king, Influencer Marketing lets you combine the best of both worlds, with the added power of word-of-mouth advertising. Influencer Marketing is taking the digital advertising industry by storm, so whether you’re a small business looking for new local customers or a global enterprise that wants to reach your audience in new and more effective ways, you’ll need to understand how it works, how to put it use, and how to get the most out of every campaign. Whether you’re new to Influencer Marketing or have already launched campaigns …

Chances are, you’ve been hearing a lot about Influencer Marketing and how it’s a powerful new spin on word-of-mouth marketing. While there’s nothing we love more than waxing poetic about just how powerful influencer marketing is, we know that nothing speaks louder than great data. We’ve combed through tons of data from some of the best marketing studies, surveys, polls and reports to find the stats that can help you decide whether it’s time to put the power of Influencer Marketing behind your next campaign. How many customers rely on recommendations when making their buying decisions? How much can word-of-mouth marketing improve your bottom line? What’s a Facebook fan really worth? Check out our infographic to find out these …

While using mobile-friendliness in its search algorithms is nothing new for Google, the search giant recently announced that it would be significantly expanding the use of this ranking signal as of April 21st. The move is designed to ensure that mobile users see the most relevant results, not only in terms of content but also in terms of usability. The update is especially important consideration in light of Google’s own research, which shows that customers are increasingly using their mobile devices to research their buying decisions, and that over 74% of users start with search. Perhaps even more importantly, as many as 93% of people who used a mobile device to do their research ended up making a purchase (Source: …

Bloomberg Business recently reported that Google and Twitter have reforged a deal that will bring back the availability of real-time Twitter updates in Google’s search results. Confirmed during Twitter’s recent fourth quarter earnings call, the move appears to be a strategic part of Twitter CEO Dick Costolo’s efforts to increase Twitter’s visibility among non-users. The move also helps bring new strength to Google’s ability to return the most relevant – and up-to-the-minute – results. This isn’t the first time Google fed its results with live Twitter updates; the companies forged a similar partnership in 2009 that lasted for two years. At the time, the deal filled in for Twitter’s lack of a robust search function, but the deal was allowed to eventually …

In order to really grow your business, you need to have a brand that’s top-of-mind, one that customers will think of when it comes time to make a purchase, inquire about a service, or offer a recommendation to a friend.

Having a mobile friendly site is more important than ever, and this week Google’s making that clear. Over the last week, Google has begun a mass email campaign aimed to alert webmasters if their sites have mobile-usability issues. What Does Mobile-Usibility Mean for Your SEO? If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, Google wants you to know. Google starts off their email message by telling webmasters to “fix mobile usability issues found on [your website here],” explains that mobile-usability impacts a searchers mobile user-experience, and, most importantly: that the search engine will be displaying and ranking mobile webpages accordingly. With more searchers using smartphones and tablets than desktops, having a site where every page is smartphone ready is essential to your SEO. Mobile usability errors are not only detrimental to a users experience …

Killer content is a powerful conversion tool, when used correctly. Understanding the psychology behind what your customers are looking for in that content, and how you can give it to them, is key when you’re looking to get the most out of your content marketing. As human beings it is only natural to rush to judgment about all aspects of an online experience–especially when something is as subjective as content. This desire to dissect and interpret reaches branded content as much as it does anything else. Great content can turn brand-ambivilants (or even brand-skeptics) into brand-evangelists and bad content–well, vise versa. While many businesses are investing heavily in social media strategies to try and increase their following and influence the …

Content marketing isn’t the next big thing. It’s the big thing. And with everyone today trying their hand at content marketing, creating average content simply isn’t going to cut it anymore. But what makes great content marketing great? What’s the difference between average content and phenomenal content? Unfortunately, great content has no one true formula, but there are a lot of common factors that all pieces of great content share. 1. Great Content Has a Purpose Great content takes us on a journey. Weather it’s an expert guide, a page-turning novel, a quirky infographic, a thought-provoking blog post, a well-executed webinar, a viral video—your customers turn to content for the same reason you do. To be taken places, to be …

Now, with diversity, relevance, share-ability, and especially user-experince at an all time high as top priorities to Google’s algorithm and key ranking factors for getting found at the top of the SERPs, video SEO has never been more important. Google’s goal is to give users what they want, and customers love how-to videos, viral clips, quick synopses, fast answers and engaging content, all of which videos provide.

If you’ve ever had the burning desire to express your search query in the form of an emoji, you’re in luck. Bing has announced their algorithm will now officially be supporting the use of emoji characters as search terms in all English search queries. As most iphone users should be familiar with, emoji are are tiny images used to express common ideas, objects, and emotions. While emoji have been features on mobile keyboards for the past few years, they haven’t always been searchable. Where once Bing’s search algorithm returned only “No Results Found” messages, Bing has now opened up a whole new world of tiny picture-prompted search results. By incorporating emojis into their search algorithm, Bing has now enabled consumers …